Unemployment Diary: Enough

"I'm hungry."

"What would you like to eat?"

She pauses. I wait. And wait. I'm impatient. I have things to do. "Phia? What would you like to eat?"

She looks at me, her dark eyes in a squint. "I can't decide. There's too much to choose from."

Ah.

The issue of scarcity comes up in a way I didn't expect. But then this is why people who win big in the lottery lose their minds and end up destitute and depressed three years after they bought the yacht, the life size statue of Elvis, the portable zoo, and the vintage jukebox collection for their custom built pool house.

Scarcity affects your brain. Going from having not enough to having more than enough is a weird transition.

We went from being a family with enough to a family with not quite enough. When I was employed, we were already juggling madly. Because I've made idiotic decisions in my personal life and financial life and began my career in the Pink Collar Ghetto and never learned the art of negotiation thus giving away a lot of my talent without ever labeling it a valuable commodity, we were in Chapter 13 Bankruptcy (that's the one where you pay back your debt to those long suffering banks like Citibank, Chase and Barclays) and in the settlement, we gave up our house and a car.

We tested the notion that once you get behind the eight ball, it's really hard to get out. Guess what! It's true! You've heard that if you're in a hole, the first step to getting out is to stop digging line? Well, once you stop digging, you still have to claw your way out, running at the steep sides, clutching at nothing but a belief that things will get better if you follow the rules whatever the hell they are. And don't forget to dodge the dirt clods being lobbed at you by someone up there. And I don't mean god.

Even so, we had enough. Not shopping and vacations and savings account enough, but enough.

So we went from that to not quite having enough. We reached the end of each month feeling stressed and hungering for things we couldn't have. I worried about having the utilities would be cut off. We still can't agree which is worse- having the gas, water or electricity cut off. We experienced each at least once. The cats found it exceedingly difficult when the TV was cut off, for example. Not being able to watch Animal Hoarders was tantamount to torture. But they, too, survived.

When food was more scarce than we were accustomed to, we each reacted in our own way. MathMan and I hid any treats in our room because the kids became territorial as we got squeezed.

"I spat on that so don't eat it."
"That's my last bit of ice cream. You had two bowls of it already."
"Can I have a piece of your gum?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I have to make it last."

It wasn't all bad. We've grown from the experience and I hope we never forget making choices such as whether to eat what's left of the salad now or save it for lunch tomorrow? Salad. Right. That wasn't me.

Realizing that we couldn't continue that way, especially if I hadn't found paid work before the unemployment checks stopped coming, we took a hard look at our variable expenses and decided that we would have to cut spending on groceries because that was one thing we could control. I took the couponing class and started researching buying groceries on a cycle and stockpiling.

I had no idea what a radical change that would mean for us regarding the issue of scarcity. Through inertia and ignorance, we'd been living a split deprivation. The first two weeks of the month, we lived our old life - a fully stocked pantry and refrigerator, money on the bank card for gasoline. The last two weeks, it felt like a rerun of the Great Depression with cellphones and iPods and a message at the gas tank that read "Please see attendant." Gulp.

So now we have enough food and with the money we're saving on groceries, cleaning supplies and electricity (using the dryer less), we're able to pay our bills on time. With our tax refund, we paid off our outstanding medical bills except for the orthodontist, but at the end of this month, we'll bring that bill up to date. We set aside some savings for emergencies because we drive two cars, each with 200,000 miles already under their fan belts and we're considering moving closer to MathMan's job, but there's no getting around the fact that moving is expensive and would cause yet another financial setback. Rising gas prices may create a no win situation and force the issue. Damn it. I like gazing at that balance in the savings account.

Now what was my point? Oh, yes. Having enough. And how living with scarcity changes you. It's true. Sometime in early January, I had my Scarlet O'Hara moment. I stomped around the backyard, hiked up my dress, shook my fist at the sunset and announced that we would never go hungry again.

The neighbors are still talking about it.

The kids will adjust. MathMan and I will adjust. We always do.

Here's the nice part. Having enough moves us from the receivers' column back to the givers' column where I, at least, feel more comfortable. Some of the food that I'm getting for free is going to a local food bank and the free toiletries are going to a woman's shelter. There's even a way to recycle expired coupons. You can send them to military bases where they can be used by our service members and their families.

This is what it looks like when people have a chance for a fresh start. Our family is going to recover from this financial mess. While the reality that I'll never replace my former income is a frustrating example of how things have changed for workers in this nation, I can at least use my experiences as a long-term job seeker as blog fodder, book fodder and a reason to drink. Plus, it's aces for putting a quick end to fundraising phone calls.

"Hi, Mrs. Golden, how are you today? This is Shelley with the Save the Speckled Easter Egg Fund and I'm not calling to ask for money, but can I tell you a little about what we do?"

"Sure. I've been unemployed for over a year and still can't find a job so I'm lonely and bored. Broke, too, so there's no disposable income for me to donate, but please do, tell me what your organization is doing."

Click.

I guess she'd heard enough. Dang it. I had to go back to talking to the cats.

*********

Speaking of fundraisers (and I do support some), my friend Latka is fundraising for the Multiple Sclerosis Walk. Latka's father suffered from the disease and now his daughter Meredith, age 30, has been diagnosed with it. Please join me by making a donation. If we each give, it adds up. And some day, it will be enough.

Thank you.

Unemployment Diary: My Pledge to You

Dear Potential Employers:

It's been brought to my attention by the counselor at the Department of Labor that my resume may be a problem for you because it contains titles such as Executive Director and Vice President and the things I've listed under accomplishments and duties make you itch with anxiety and your eyes cross with boredom. Contrary to what those liars in the college employment placement office told me in 1989, you are not dazzled by my transferable skills and upward career trajectory as illustrated by the job titles beginning with secretary (1989) and ending with Vice President, Programs and Services (2009). In other words, my resume intimidates you or causes you assume that I'm only applying for your job because I am desperate.

Now that's a pity because I am desperate. As in you can smell it on me if you get too close.

Because life is full of paradoxes, people who will counsel me to sanitize my resume of high falutin' words and dastardly deeds like creating budgets, managing volunteers and staff, developing marketing plans or serving as the chief staff of a small organization (read: guide the Board of Directors to do what you want, but make them think it's their idea) think that I'm not smart enough to know that I should have multiple versions of my resume, each targeted for specific industries, fields, and levels of employment, I've been advised to once again revisit my self-promotional material to see if perhaps it can be whittled and reworked in order to make you think that I didn't work for nearly twenty years to get promotions, better pay and better titles.

Well now that leaves me with some interesting choices, doesn't it? The last time I held a secretarial job was in 1995 and even then it had the fancy title of Administrative Coordinator or some such nonsense and paid more than most of the jobs I see listed today. Plus it had killer benefits. So how do I explain what I've been doing for the last sixteen years?  Okay, the last year is easy - job hunting, bitching about job hunting, cleaning, living on the dole, writing things to shove into a pile under my bed, taking pictures of birdies and pussy cats, reading and more recently couponing which I now like to call Hunting and Gathering. But what about the years 1996 - 2009? How do I rework the pain and pleasure of those jobs which ultimately led me to Georgia, the running of a small organization and the path to ruin also known as my last job?

Oh, hang on. Potential employers don't appreciate negativity, do they? Fine. Let me worry about how to fix my absurd problem of having played by the rules, climbed the ladder and achieved some career success. I'll just take out my magic Sharpie et voila! I've always been a secretary/administrative assistant/customer service associate/waitress/barista/sales associate/other duties as assigned doer.

Because in reality, I was. Not just as a mother and wife, but in my former paid jobs, not only did I do the big, important, if you fuck this up, we're going to have expensive problems kinds of things, but I also cleared the table of food debris after Board meetings, ordered lunches, planned meetings and parties, wrestled with the copier, crawled around on the floor hooking up technology, packed and lugged boxes, made love to the postage meter, cleaned out storerooms, answered phones with a smile in my voice, created and maintained hardcopy and database files, kept multiple calendars, made travel arrangements for myself and others, submitted expenses, stuffed envelopes, designed newsletters, drove my boss to the airport, and ruined many a manicure inputting reams of data entry. Because when you work in an office of two or three or five people, you pretty much have to do it all at some point. We didn't have People for that. We were the People.

As for other duties as assigned, I've even written about how I'm willing to go above and beyond. You can expect topnotch effort and creativity from me and that includes Breaking and Entering on Your Behalf and Teaching You How to Use Urban Dictionary and Other Swell Things to Make You Appear Hip. If you will only give me a chance, that is.

After careful consideration, I've decided that all future resumes and pleas applications for employment will contain the following pledge (places hand on stack of books made up of a Gregg Shorthand Manual, The American Heritage College dic-tion-ar-ry, three manila folders, a generic employee handbook and a daily planner circa 2003 that came free from a marketing firm):

I, Lisa Golden, do solemnly swear to be an honest and faithful employee, willing to carry out the simplest and most complex duties assigned by you, The Employer, with a professionally cheerful demeanor, a minimum of supervision, a maximum of customer satisfaction, no questions about work conditions or rules, no sniping about salary or benefits or lack thereof, no comment about your tie choices, shoes or taste in movies, no eye rolling or heavy sighs, no passive aggressive references to your lack of intelligence, no use of sarcasm, humor - ill or otherwise, or large words. I vow to never utter the words "Well, in my last position" nor to ever mention that I once made more money or held a higher position than my current one or yours for that matter. 


I pledge complete loyalty to you and the organization for which you stand or sit in that fine leather manager's chair and to complete all tasks to the best of my ability without dragging with me into the workplace any personal issues and needs, any reminders that I might have ideas of getting up in the world or any need for vacation, sick or family leave days. I will not litter my workspace with personal items or reminders that I have a life outside of work. I will never make a suggestion about how to do things better unless expressly asked by you or your superior, at which point I will offer the most obsequious (sorry about that big word, it means boot-licking) answer, repeating the phrase "Well, as (your name here) suggested" first.When it is just you and me, I will make you feel comfortable in taking my ideas as your own because, as any employee worth her White Out knows, your success is my success and any and all good things coming to you will eventually trickle down to me.


Finally, you have my assurances that even though I've had better paying jobs with fancier titles, I will not bail out on you at the first sign of an economic recovery. I've learned my lesson about changing jobs for better opportunities. I am here for the duration. You own me. I know how lucky I am to have this job. And if you find that you must, at some point, let me go due to economic factors outside your control or because you must slash payroll to make a larger bonus, you can be confident that I will not leave in a blaze of poo smeared file folders and angry emails to vendors and customers. I will stay as long as you need me and create as smooth a transition as I can for the person who will be doing my job after I'm gone.


So help me, Todd. I do. Amen?

And now that I've made my pledge, please allow me to address some things that might be obstacles to my employment as far as you're concerned.

1. The credit check. While I understand that it's important for people like bank tellers and bookkeepers to have clean credit and no reason to embezzle to pay off their debts, I find this new wrinkle in employment requirements unnecessary. It is a new day. It's not bankruptcy, it's a government bailout trickling down. We gave taxpayer money to the banks to cover their bad debts. I paid my Chapter 13 bad debts as long as I had a job. After that, it became impossible to pay the monthly bill. Ergo, the banks got most of the money owed to them plus the car and the house which was how the deal worked. That's called a secured loan because it has collateral that can be repossessed by the lender. Neato, huh?

Understanding this weakness in my personal financial history, I've shown the good sense to not apply for jobs in finance, banking and bookkeeping. Now you show the good sense to stop using credit checks to weed out good potential employees who've been swept aside in this mess of an economy.

2. Those advertising that Unemployed Need Not Apply. This isn't unemployed. This is learning new skills. With my new stockpiling skills, just think what I can do for your office supplies line item. Hand me that Staples catalog and watch me make magic happen. Phone bill too high? I've got tin cans and string. You can save money and go green at the same time. What are you paying for that water cooler?  Your staff can have that some sharing time carrying buckets of water up from the industrial park's retention pond as they get from standing around the Crystal Springs bubbler.

Hey, maybe I should become a consultant and charge three times as much as you would pay me!``

3. My former salary. As I told the woman at the Department of Labor, of course I'm willing to work for ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollars less than I used to make. Who wouldn't want a deal like that? It's exactly why I went to college, worked my ass off for almost twenty years, left my kids in the care of others, took on extra duties to earn promotions, traded off salary for title, worked for no insurance benefits and no pension or 401K because my former employers were cheapskates and wanted to pay me about 1/4 less than a man would make for the same job and tried to make me feel guilty for asking for more money.

This is me dangling over the barrel. Do I look like I'm in a position to negotiate?

4. Moving to where the jobs are. While the kids would be delighted to be uprooted again and MathMan can afford to leave his megabucks generating scam as a math teacher, this isn't really a viable option. Employers understand this economy all too well. Just try finding a position that offers moving expenses these days. Besides, we got rid of our snow shovels when we moved to Georgia. Not only would I have to pay to move us and our stuff, I'd have to buy snow shovels and Snow Melt again.

5. Isn't it time for you to retrain to be something else? Oh sure, I like to think about how my future in auto or diesel would be sweet like crude oil, but we've been over this. As I like to say to the cats in my best Jewish Mother voice "And why do I need another job title that isn't doctor or lawyer? So I can make minimum wage cheering people on as they pass kidney stones?" Cheering them? I'd be more likely to rush them.  Are you done yet? How about now? Oh, please, I've had three kids with no drugs, so just stop with all that grimacing and noisemaking. You're fine. And wipe that up. I'm your nurse, not your maid.

Seriously, you do not want me in the medical field. It would be a setback to humanity of epic proportions. But since I mentioned maids, now there's something I've been training to do all my life, but I digress.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you soon about the open position.  I am available for an interview at your convenience, but don't think that I'm without time commitments because I'm not currently working. Today is Mystery Coupon Day at Publix, after all.

Unemployment Diary: Should Have Charged for Product Placement

My mother never really spent much time drilling the old Don't talk to strangers thing into our heads. For one thing, our town was so small, there weren't any strangers and for another, Mom had plenty of other things for us to be afraid of like Republicans winning elections and perceptions that we were anything less than solidly Middle Class.

So without this ingrained wariness of people I don't know, I'm apt to have forty-five minute long conversations about unemployment and wage stagnation with strangers in Staples or ten minute long convos in the frozen food section of Publix with a woman who offered me a coupon and ended up walking away with some frozen garlic bread and a coupon I gave her in exchange.

It's all in a day's work now that I'm accepting the fact that I might never have a traditional job again and I better jolly well figure out how we're going to manage in the future. As I've mentioned before, looking for a job has gotten so ridiculous, it is now sublime. But as any rule following collector of unemployment checks does, I continue the hunt like a technology-enhanced Elmer Fudd stalking Bugs Bunny. My gun is a laptop loaded with seventeen different mutations of my resume like interview-repelling viruses. Just like in the old Warner Brothers cartoons, the rabbit is winning and I'm still talking funny.

So despite the magical thinking of supply side economics, revenue numbers stay down, John Boehner, so what gets cut?

Again? My subconscious is skeptical. Haven't we gone through this already? We have. We've nailed down every fixed cost as best we can. While I continue to seek new income streams, we must get serious about cutting our variable costs even more.

As a result, I've been away from my usual corner of the blogosphere as I trolled the frugal living websites for ideas and attended a class (free, of course, at the library) on how to save using coupons. First, let me say that there is a wealth of information out there and second let me say that I've been feeling physically ill about how much money we've wasted over the years for the sake of convenience or due to sheer ignorance and laziness.

Implementing these money saving strategies has been time consuming because I'm either a slow learner or a perfectionist or both, but I assure you, they've been worth it. See, I'd assumed that cutting back equaled deprivation. Not so. Sure, you can buy an awful lot of convenience, but if you watch your pennies, you can have enough and the peace of mind that comes with not running out of stuff like food and toilet paper or money. Man, that sounds like ad copy for an infomercial, but bear with me, because there is a dark side to all this. And we're all about the dark side, aren't we?

For example, the couponing world is cut throat. Yesterday at the CVS, I had to settle for the Colgate Total (.75 off one coupon) instead of the Colgate Sensitive ($1 off one coupon) because some hoarder had cleared the shelves of the Sensitive. Same thing happened a couple of weeks ago at the Rite Aid. Some selfish hoarders had snatched up all the Prevacid 40ct. $24.99 with $10 +UP reward so I had to go across the street to the CVS and get the Prilosec 40ct $24.99 with $7 Extra Care Bucks instead. But that's okay. I got two boxes, used my $8 off 2 coupon and got a $24.99 rebate form to boot.  So those hoarders can suck it.

Which leads me to my second example - name calling. Now I haven't seen any verbal assaults at the store, but at home, they're calling me names behind my back. They still haven't figured out the Mom Bionic Hearing thing apparently.

"Have you seen the laundry room?" Nate and Sophie were in the living room watching TV and assumed I couldn't hear them from the dining room where I sat skimming SouthernSavers.com and printing coupons like a fiend.

"I know," Sophie said. "How many cans of diced tomatoes does one family need?" (They were buy one, get one free and I had four .50 off 2 coupons that Publix doubles plus two store coupons. That's called stacking.)

Nate aimed the remote at the TV and switched the channel to A&E. "And what? Does she think we'll be living on just cereal and soup?"

Sophie snorted. "Don't forget the olive oil. There's like seven bottles down there." (She exaggerates. There are four bottles down there. B1G1 with store and manufacturer coupons!) Her voice grew grave. "Hey, you don't think she's becoming one of those hoarders, do you?" Ah. There's that word. Hoarder. I prefer stockpiler.

Nate thought about it for a second. "Nah, she's too much of a neat freak to be a real hoarder. She's like a cross between a stockpiler and a homesteader.What's with her making her own laundry detergent?"

"I know," Sophie laughed. "I came home from school the other day and asked if the dryer was broken because she had wash hanging all over the place. Plus she cleans with vinegar and baking soda now instead of Windex and bleach. Weird."

"Next thing you know, she'll be sewing herself some long skirts and wearing bonnets like those homesteaders."

I'd heard enough. "Hey, you ingrates! The money I'm saving is how we can afford to get satellite so you even know the difference between a hoarder and a stockpiler."

They turned to look at me. I expected a little chagrin from them. Instead they burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" I sputtered.

Nate pointed and I looked down at my shirt. A coupon dangled from my sweatered breast. Stupid static cling. I'd have to remember to add a bit more vinegar to the laundry rinse cycle until the Georgia humidity came back.

I admit, I'm experimenting with money saving ideas. Hang drying the clothes and using the dryer to fluff them for ten minutes or less will result in savings. Making my own laundry detergent is a no brainer. $10.99 for a big box of Surf or about $3.10 for the same amount of washes by mixing washing soda, borax and a bar of castile soap that I've grated. Even I can do that math.

Air drying the dishes in the dishwasher instead of using the heated dry setting = success. Turning off the high heat wash, not so much. It's trial and error. I'm still waiting to fall in love with Dr. Bronner and his amazing castile soaps, but if I remember my time in France correctly, that's where I learned that lots of lather = clean is an American notion and not necessarily true so I suspect Dr. B. and I will be BFFs soon.

Dialing the thermostat way down will be much easier to appreciate now that the worst of winter is behind us. Typing in gloves is a bitch, but typing with frozen fingers is an even bigger bitch.

Like any new interest, it's easy for me to go overboard. I start conversations with "Hey, did you see that Publix has Louis Jadot Beaujolais on sale for $10.99?" The cats don't care about Beaujolais. They want to know when I'm going to uncork the next can of Nine Lives (Box of 24 for $10.49 at Publix, still less per can than the box of 32 Friskies with a coupon).

I'd mentioned that this is time consuming. Preparing for the shopping trips is just the beginning. The trips themselves are an endurance exercise. It's as if my time is worth nothing which, according to most employers these days, is true. Yesterday, as I snailed my way through Publix calculating whether I should come back a second time so I could use my second $5 off any $30 bill (excluding the Beaujolais, naturally) an assistant manager approached me.

"I'm sorry, m'am, but we have a policy against loitering," she whispered.

I held up my hand as I finished counting the Pillsbury, Hunts, Green Giant and Progresso items in my basket (buy 20, save $5 with coupon of which I had two, but could use only one per trip hence the complicated math). "Loitering? I'm counting. And now I have to start over because I don't remember if I have six or eight cans of green beans. Say, while you're here, can you reach that jar of Mt. Olive sweet pickle relish that's on sale? Thank you."

She handed me the jar and as I placed it in the cart I said something about what a pain it is to be so short, but when I turned she was already rounding the aisle's end cap at a full run.

The grocery trips are long, too, because I inevitably end up chatting with other customers. It's funny what will spark a conversation. Like the woman who, like me, is new to using coupons in earnest. She gave me her extra Bertolli's and I gave her a New York brand garlic bread. Could I have used the extra fifty cents off another box of garlicky Texas Toast? Of course! But we're not savages,  you know. Give and take, people. Give and take.

I also find that I have to restrain myself from telling other shoppers to stop wasting their money, go home, get online and look at some Youtube videos about stockpiling and batch cooking, buy a few Sunday papers (be sure some hoarder hasn't swiped the coupon sections) and plan out their trips. They'll be amazed at what they save.

I've become such a convert. You know that line from A Christmas Story where Jean Shepard says "Some men are Baptists, others Catholics; my father was an Oldsmobile man." Well, I am now a Smart Source and Red Plum chick.

I will have to reign it in eventually. Chloe will be home for Spring Break in a couple of weeks and I don't think she'll appreciate having her room serve as a warehouse. There is a good chance that MathMan will clip my coupon wings before long.

Last night he called to let me know that he and Nate were on their way home from baseball practice. That's my cue to race around and make this house look like I've done something besides watch fetish videos and lie around watching movies with the cats. Yesterday was different. I was in the middle of creating inventory sheets for the small grocery store that's sprouted in the basement. I'd spent most of my day chasing deals all over Cartersville and was tired, but happy with my haul versus savings ratio.

Sophie was occupied so I decided I'd wait for MathMan in our bedroom and surprise him with the new homemade shampoo recipe I'd found online. I'd offer to help him unwind with a shower and well, you know. It would be a nice change from the boring old Hi, Honey, how was your day conversation we have every evening as I close window after window of Adult Friend Finder pop up ads. I got comfortable on the bed wearing the most alluring thing I had.

When he opened the door, you should have seen the look on his face.

"Well, this is a nice surprise," he smiled.

I did a Vanna White hand sweep along my naked thigh and gave him my best come on, baby smile. "You like?"

His eyebrows went up a fraction and he licked his lips. "You know I do. How nice to come home to a naked wife."

I blushed a little. "I thought we might have a shower." I'd save the shampoo surprise for after we were wet.

"Sounds wonderful." He moved closer and I closed my eyes, preparing to be kissed. "Hey," his voice was already taking on that husky tone. Nice.

I opened my eyes. "Yes?"

"What's this?" He fingered the thing I had draped around my neck. It snaked down along the length of my body.

"Oh, I thought you'd like this. It's something I got today." I closed my eyes again waiting for that kiss.

He leaned closer and I could smell the fresh air from the baseball field in his long hair. I was so ready for that kiss. He pulled back and I felt my new apparel slip away from my body as he tugged it. I opened my eyes again and looked at his handsome face which was now intent on examining the thing he held in his hands.

"Lisa, my darling, why are you wearing the Publix receipt?"

Please tell me you get absorbed and obsessed. What sucks you in and steals your time, your heart, your imagination? Confess to me or I'll make you clip coupons for me.